Nigeria celebrates the 51st anniversary of the country on Saturday October 1. Possibly, for the very first time in the history of the country, the government has chosen not to celebrate the occasion. There is actually nothing to celebrate. Even during the civil war of 1967 to 1971, the government celebrated the Independence Day!

The real reason for not celebrating this year’s Independence Day is not the one quoted by the government. The government actually stopped the celebration because of the mounting insecurity in Nigeria. The fear of Boko Haram, the Jos debacle, the bombings that the government has no clue and of course the recent bombings of the United Nations building in Abuja is the real reason why the day will not be celebrated. Indeed, the reason is the fear of the known. The government has no answer to these issues. It is therefore safest not to celebrate.

Indeed, the party in power the PDP has failed to demonstrate any modicum of initiative in promoting democracy in Nigeria. One basic issue is the recent removal of the names of political parties from the register of the so-called Independent National Electoral Commission INEC. The body said it was following the law of the land. Self- seekers went on, just before the last general elections to pass a law that is against the Constitution of the country. The legislature amended the Electoral law to allow for the delisting of political parties from the register. We have said it and we repeat here that there is no proper democracy in the world, where the Electoral Commission delists political parties from the register.

We showed recently that in its recent amendments to the 1999 Constitution, the National Assembly resolved to limit the number of political parties to five. The Nigerian news media presented the event to the public in the toga of a democratic dispensation. The headlines cried that the decision was a defeat for the motion for a two-party system and described the era as a multiparty system! Any limitation on the number of political parties is anti democratic.
It does not promote democracy. Indeed, no country that puts a limit on free formation of political parties can develop a genuinely democratic nation. Countries that limit political parties are modified dictatorships. Such countries are not democracies. They are a dictatorship.

The current leaders of the Nigerian ruling groups copy Britain and America as the masterpieces for democratic governance. The benchmarks are excellent examples as multi party societies. There is an erroneous belief by many Nigerian politicians that these two countries are two party democracies. They are not. Indeed, one of the Nigerian legislators made a public statement that with the 2010 elections, Britain that was a two party state is now a three party country! There is confusion in that the legislators transferred the internal problems of the PDP and presented same as a national constitutional problem.

The PDP lacks internal party democracy because it is the main party essentially and substantially made up of military autocrats and their right wing collaborators. Those who wield power and influence in the PDP are Obasanjo, Babangida, Atiku, Danjuma and their cohorts. These are naturally dictators. Those who work with them utilise their roles as shortcuts to personal wealth. The other ruling right wing political parties, ACN, ANPP, and APGA may also be devoid of internal democracy to various degrees. The issue of internal democracy in a political party is not such a national matter that warrants its enshrinement in the National Constitution.

The chairman of INEC once made a statement that he would leave the parties to the whims of the electorate. That indeed is democracy. The DA may indeed not survive in the current trends in politics of Nigeria. It will not survive, not because of delisting by the INEC, but because it just cannot survive. It is inherently dead! However, I tell you, another party of similar ideology will come up. You do not promote democracy by limiting the number of political parties on the register. I will tell you that the number of political parties on the British register of political parties is as of June 24, 2010 as 398 in Great Britain and 45 in Northern Ireland. In the United States of America, we have over forty registered political parties.

There are similar examples from the Nordic countries that are probably the best-sustained democracies in Finland, Norway and Denmark. There are similar examples in many other countries of Europe.